Sunday Hymn - Abide with Me and Schubert's Sanctus

Nice Sunday Hymn and Schubert's Sanctus - 2 beautiful selections. So very peaceful.


What brings peace to you?

Sunday Hymn

I share this beautiful hymn with you - the tune will be familiar to many of you, but I don't believe it is a tune in our hymnal. It speaks of peace, hope, freedom, and dreams. Follow the words as they are singing and enjoy the beauty of their voices. (Please note: stop the video at the end of the song before the long applause)

This is my song, Oh God of all the nations,

A song of peace for lands afar and mine.

This is my home, the country where my heart is;

Here are my hopes, my dreams, my sacred shrine.

But other hearts in other lands are beating,

With hopes and dreams as true and high as mine.

My country’s skies are bluer than the ocean,

And sunlight beams on cloverleaf and pine.

But other lands have sunlight too and clover,

And skies are everywhere as blue as mine.

Oh hear my song, oh God of all the nations,

A song of peace for their land and for mine.

May truth and freedom come to every nation;

may peace abound where strife has raged so long;

that each may seek to love and build together,

a world united, righting every wrong;

a world united in its love for freedom,

proclaiming peace together in one song.

Words: Lloyd Stone, Georgia Harkness

Music: Finlandia - J. Sibelius

Sunday Hymn - Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing

Our entrance hymn today at St. John's was "Come thou fount of every blessing, a popular hymn composed in the 18th century by the Methodist pastor and hymnist Robert Robinson (tune by Nettleton).





While reading up a little about the history of the hymn, I discovered that Charles Ives, an American composer, had taken this hymn and placed it in a string quartet. As I went hunting for it on Youtube, I found this lovely video of the String Quartet. Clearly one can hear the tune woven throughout his composition. So I share with you also this to enjoy:

What we sang at church today

We all know the story prompt "What we did on summer vacation" - well, this is "What we sang in church today". Many of you know we are in small church, but in that church are some folks with big hearts and voices. Today we sang as the entrance hymn "Praise my soul, the King of Heaven", which is one of my favorites, the the Episcopal church has a lovely accompaniment and descant to go along with the hymn singing. And I think our little church did quite well with it today.

However, we are not St. Paul's Cathedral in London - and this video is of the same hymn sung (albeit a different descant). We did not sing it at the same tempo as this one is sung more slowly, but for those of you who have sung in a cathedral understand that hymns usually are sung more slowly due to the nature of the large space, and to allow the sound to travel throughout the physical space.

However, without further comment, I share with you this video for your listening pleasure.

Sunday Music - The King of Love My Shepherd is

Today during our service, we did something a little different than we typically do following the first lesson. In our little church, we typically either read of chant the psalm, using a psalm tone so very familiar to us. There is a comfort with the predictable, knowing exactly what is going to happen next.

However, today we sang the psalm (23), which is the "psalm of all psalms", "The Lord is my Shepherd" - using the hymn "The King of Love My Shepherd is" was our hymn. There are various tunes to which we are familiar in the church. However, I find the one to the hymn tune "Dominus Regit Me" (by Ralph Vaughan-Williams) particularly soothing and meaningful to me.

As I meandered through Youtube, there is an increasing amount of choices from which to choose.  Some have been chosen to be watched by thousands upon thousands, and usually those are wonderful chestnuts to view. The one I selected has been out for a good six months and viewed by fewer than 400.  It's a prelude performed by the Bournemouth Sinfonietta conducted by George Hurst.  Listen to this lovely little pastoral sounding tune -- listen to the tune Dominus Regit Me meandering throughout the piece.







Share with us your worship experience through the sound of music today. What hymns did you sing? Which were particularly meaningful to you today?

cross posted at Revgalblogpals.

Wondrous Love

I have this version of "What Wondrous Love is this" on my Ipod - Deborah Liv Johnson has a jewel of an album called "Softly and Tenderly" and she has a voice quality similar to Judy Collins and folk singers from that era.

In Church by Tchaikovsky & Go to Dark Gethsemane - Sunday Music

As I was looking for music for this Sunday, I looked through the hymns for this Sunday, and as I searched through Youtube, it will take you to one hymn and you find a plethora of choices, some quite good, some very homemade and rough around the edges. And once you find and listen, you then have further recommendations to "try me", "listen to this one", and so it's like traveling from town to town, and you end up no where from where you started. And this is how I ended up with this one. This was posted just last week and so only a few have viewed it, so it doesn't rank way up there to view as many do,

So perseverance sometimes pays off, and i happened upon this one. I looks like it was intended for public viewing on a public access channel of a local cable system. It's quite nicely done for a homegrown production. The art that fades in while the pianist is playing certainly enhances it, with one of the selections being the 6th century icon shown in this post.

It's a meditative video, one to enjoy with a definite Lenten feel to it.

Praise, my soul, the King of Heaven

I enjoy the resources that we have with the internet. At our fingertips are resources of most anything we want to know. One of these resources is from Oremus (this is the link for the recommended music for each Sunday in Year C of the lectionary). It allows us to choose, if we are musicians choosing Sunday's music, or if we just want to hear or check out the music for that particular Sunday that supports the readings in our service. Click on the link, and voila, you can many times hear the music for the hymn. Or you can many times go to Youtube and find the hymn already posted from many resources, some professionally done, others raw recordings with no editing, with live music recorded. Some are excellent, others are recorded with the best of intentions, and are near and dear to those who are somehow connected in some way to the recording.

One of the hymns recommended for the Fourth Sunday in Lent is "Praise, my soul, the King of heaven." It's an old favorite, a chestnut of the many hymns in our 1982 hymnal. And, not surprisingly, there are numerous videos of the hymn.

The one I selected is a recording from the Choir of Westminster Abbey, with pictures from Westminster Abbey. The hymn includes a beautiful descant sung by the choir on the last verse. However, it is not the one that is in our hymnal. Beautiful all the same.

Dwelling Place - how lovely

I was looking for the recommended hymns for Sunday - and saw the hymn "How lovely is thy dwelling place". What comes to mind is not the tune in the hymnal, but the one from Brahms Requiem. It's one of the first choral works I remember performing at some point in my high school years, and brings warm memories and the presence of the Lord and His dwelling place to my heart.


So I went looking on Youtube, as I usually do, and had in mind posting the Brahms version. I tried to find the one which had the clearest, cleanest sound and one that suited MY fancy for you to hear.


It was not to be.


I can tell you that it caught my attention.


Now, if you will indulge me.....
Interestingly, same exact music, different video. See the difference.






Where is your dwelling place?

All My Hope on God is Founded

This Sunday's hymn, which I chose to post is "All My Hope on God is Founded" - it's one of my favorites - it always interests me how a congregation participates in hymn singing. Are they singing with a smile? Are they singing it as though it comes from their heart, mind, and soul?  Are their heads buried in the music? Do they sing regardless of the tune they carry?

This particular video, I wonder, do the folks know the camera is recording their every move? They seem to sing with more gusto!